1 Kings 17

17 ¹Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, told Ahab, "As our Father, Israel's God, lives—before whom I stand—no dew or rain will fall these years except by my word."

²Then the word of our Father came to Elijah:

³"Leave this place, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Brook Cherith, east of the Jordan. ⁴You will drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there."

⁵So he went and did as our Father said; he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, east of the Jordan. ⁶The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. ⁷After a while the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.

The Father Provides Through a Widow

⁸Then the word of our Father came to him:

⁹"Get up, go to Zarephath near Sidon, stay there. I have ordered a widow there to feed you."

¹⁰So he went to Zarephath. At the city gate, a widow gathered sticks. He called to her, "Please bring me a little water in a jar to drink." ¹¹As she went to get it, he called, "Please bring me a piece of bread too."

¹²She said, "As the LORD your God lives, I have no bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a bit of oil in a jug. I'm gathering a few sticks to go in and prepare it for myself and my son, so we may eat it, then die."

¹³Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go, do as you said. But first make me a small loaf from it, bring it to me; then make for you and your son."

¹⁴For our Father, Israel's God, says: "The flour jar won't run out, nor the oil jug fail, until the day our Father gives rain on the land."

¹⁵She went and did as Elijah said, and she, he, and her household ate for many days. ¹⁶The flour jar didn't run out and the oil jug didn't run dry, as our Father said through Elijah.

¹⁷Later the son of the woman, owner of the house, became ill. His illness grew so severe that no breath remained in him. ¹⁸She asked Elijah, "What's between us, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my guilt and kill my son?"

¹⁹"Give me your son," he said. Then he took him from her arms, carried him upstairs to his room, and laid him on his own bed. ²⁰He cried to our Father, "My Father, have you brought tragedy even on the widow I'm staying with, killing her son?" ²¹He stretched himself on the child three times and cried to our Father: "My Father, let this child's life return to him."

²²Our Father heard Elijah's cry, and the child's life returned to him, and he lived. ^a a v22 This is the first time in Scripture that anyone is raised from the dead — revealing our Father as the giver and restorer of life, and pointing ahead to the resurrection that comes in full through Jesus. ²³Elijah took the child, carried him from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. "Look," Elijah said, "your son is alive."

²⁴The woman told Elijah, "Now I know you're a man of God, and the word of God in your mouth is true."